Lucretius's 'Native Brine' and Teaseling. Dipsacus fullonum, Fuller's Teasel, Océ-weerd, Meuse Corridor, Venlo, The Netherlands
This photo of Dipsacus fullonum, Fuller's Teasel, provided me with an hour or so of High Amusement this afternoon. Where better to begin than with Englishman John Mason Good (1764-1827) who in 1805 published his English translation with copious notes of Lucretius's On Nature?
Good was a surgeon, a literary scholar and an able classicist, as well as a polyglot. And like Lodewijk van der Grinten (see my previous photo), the founder of the industry for which the Océ-weerd - where I saw our plant - was named, he was also a pharmacist. The fortunes of Océ go back to Van der Grinten's development of a yellow-orange dye used to give margarine the color of butter to make it economically viable. So far so good...
So then I happened on to Good's rendition of some lines of Lucretius's poem describing the 'innocent young' wetting their bed at night:
"So boys asleep, too, deeming near at hand
The public sewer, or close appropriate vase,
Oft lift their skirts the native brine t'eject,
And stain with saffron all the purple bed."
My eye was caught not as much by the urinary staining and dyeing of night clothes, but rather by that 'public sewer' (or as another translator coyly puts it: 'public jordan'), and especially by Good's very long footnote actually running on in the smallest of type for several pages.
In that note he gives a sometimes hilarious overview of the entire process of the making of wool cloth. He notes that human and animal urine was highly prized - and taxed as such by Roman authorities - as a cleaning agent and bleacher of wool. Hence also night urine from public pissoirs was avidly collected. After a full account of wool-making, he comes finally to its napping or teaseling, the process whereby it is made soft e.g. into flannel - such as my jammies as a kid. That teaseling was done by using the sharp hooks of various plants, especially thistles, and also hedgehog hides.
One would now immediately think of a direct connection to our Wild Teasel. Indeed, many later botanical authors refer to the Teasel described in Antiquity by Dioscorides and Pliny as this Dipsacus. But Good is apodictic. He praises both authors for their 'exquisite and accurate descriptions ... but neither of them make mention of that peculiar and idiopathic character of the teazle, its incurvated spines ... which alone renders it of exclusive value to the manufacturer or fuller. I cannot, therefore, agree ... that the ancients were acquainted with the real teazle...'
So if Good is right, all those historical descriptions we read of Fuller's Teasel are off the mark if they refer to its wooling use in Classical Times. But it must be said that Good's argument is one from silence ('e silentio'), so though learned and amusing it's not very strong.
And now I must quickly get up for fear of emulating Lucretius's lads...
PS In the background of course: Tanacetum vulgaris, Golden Buttons.
Lucretius's 'Native Brine' and Teaseling. Dipsacus fullonum, Fuller's Teasel, Océ-weerd, Meuse Corridor, Venlo, The Netherlands
This photo of Dipsacus fullonum, Fuller's Teasel, provided me with an hour or so of High Amusement this afternoon. Where better to begin than with Englishman John Mason Good (1764-1827) who in 1805 published his English translation with copious notes of Lucretius's On Nature?
Good was a surgeon, a literary scholar and an able classicist, as well as a polyglot. And like Lodewijk van der Grinten (see my previous photo), the founder of the industry for which the Océ-weerd - where I saw our plant - was named, he was also a pharmacist. The fortunes of Océ go back to Van der Grinten's development of a yellow-orange dye used to give margarine the color of butter to make it economically viable. So far so good...
So then I happened on to Good's rendition of some lines of Lucretius's poem describing the 'innocent young' wetting their bed at night:
"So boys asleep, too, deeming near at hand
The public sewer, or close appropriate vase,
Oft lift their skirts the native brine t'eject,
And stain with saffron all the purple bed."
My eye was caught not as much by the urinary staining and dyeing of night clothes, but rather by that 'public sewer' (or as another translator coyly puts it: 'public jordan'), and especially by Good's very long footnote actually running on in the smallest of type for several pages.
In that note he gives a sometimes hilarious overview of the entire process of the making of wool cloth. He notes that human and animal urine was highly prized - and taxed as such by Roman authorities - as a cleaning agent and bleacher of wool. Hence also night urine from public pissoirs was avidly collected. After a full account of wool-making, he comes finally to its napping or teaseling, the process whereby it is made soft e.g. into flannel - such as my jammies as a kid. That teaseling was done by using the sharp hooks of various plants, especially thistles, and also hedgehog hides.
One would now immediately think of a direct connection to our Wild Teasel. Indeed, many later botanical authors refer to the Teasel described in Antiquity by Dioscorides and Pliny as this Dipsacus. But Good is apodictic. He praises both authors for their 'exquisite and accurate descriptions ... but neither of them make mention of that peculiar and idiopathic character of the teazle, its incurvated spines ... which alone renders it of exclusive value to the manufacturer or fuller. I cannot, therefore, agree ... that the ancients were acquainted with the real teazle...'
So if Good is right, all those historical descriptions we read of Fuller's Teasel are off the mark if they refer to its wooling use in Classical Times. But it must be said that Good's argument is one from silence ('e silentio'), so though learned and amusing it's not very strong.
And now I must quickly get up for fear of emulating Lucretius's lads...
PS In the background of course: Tanacetum vulgaris, Golden Buttons.